Dead wrong: U.S. intelligence agencies know little of major threats

Commission reports that U.S. intelligence agencies know little about the major threats to U.S. security.

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, April 6, 2005

British military historian John Keegan noted in his book on intelligence services that the various ploys and violence depicted in most spy novels do nothing to bolster national security or alter the course of battle. According to the report of the latest commission to examine U.S. intelligence agencies, much the same thing could be said of the real spies.

After all is said and done, the commission found, the CIA and the entire U.S. intelligence community was dead wrong about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons, which proved to be nonexistent. Also, the commission found, the U.S. spy agencies know little about the nuclear threat of the other nations on the axis of evil, Iran and North Korea.

Many of the commission's conclusions had become generally accepted before the release of its report. One finding, however, is surprising: The commission found no direct pressure by the administration on intelligence analysts to come up with certain results. If true, the failings of the intelligence services are even more profound than previously suspected. The intelligence community was tasked to look for something and succeeded in finding what was not there.

Those at the top of the huge apparatus were either duped by their sources or the victims of self-delusion, possibly both. The commission found that reports to the president contained no shadings or doubt, as if the world were delineated in stark black and white.

Not only were top intelligence officials deaf to skeptical voices, but there was no penalty for those who got it wrong and produced the findings that took the nation to war on mistaken pretenses. In the case of Iraq, it made little difference to President Bush, who said he would have invaded Iraq even knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction. However, Congress might not have approved the invasion on political and humanitarian grounds alone.

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The intelligence estimate on Iraq was not the only or even the major failure. Three and a half years after 9/11, the commission reports, the FBI and CIA are still not sharing secrets, leaving the nation vulnerable to another disastrous terrorist attack.

Intelligence officials complain that they are not at liberty to reveal their successes. Unfortunately, those successes apparently involve things other than the most dangerous threats to the national security of the United States.